9 страница. uple to whom it had never occurred that their rank could impress anyone, and George Dennorant was a little embarrassed when Tom took away his dirty plate and

uple to whom it had never occurred that their rank could impress anyone, and George Dennorant was a little embarrassed when Tom took away his dirty plate and handed him a dish to help himself to the next course.

"No golf for Roger tomorrow, I think," said Julia to herself.

They stayed up talking and laughing till three in the morning, and when Tom said good night to her his eyes were shining; but whether from love or champagne she did not know. He pressed her hand.

"What a lovely party," he said.

It was late when Julia, dressed in organdie,* looking her best, ca-me down into the garden. She saw Roger in a long chair with a book.

"Reading?" she said, lifting her really beautiful eyebrows. "Why aren't you playing golf?"

Roger looked a trifle sulky. "Tom said it was too hot."

"Oh?" she smiled charmingly. "I was afraid you thought you ought to stay and entertain my guests. There are going to be so many pe-ople, we could easily have managed without you. Where are the ot-hers?"

"I don't know. Tom's making chichi* with Cecily Dennorant." "She's very pretty, you know."

"It looks to me as though it's going to be a crashing bore today." "I hope Tom won't find it so," she said, as though she were serio-

usly concerned.

Roger remained silent.

The day passed exactly as she had hoped. It was true that she saw little of Tom, but Roger saw less. Tom made a great hit with the Dennorants; he explained to them how they could get out of paying as much income-tax as they did. He listened respectfully to the Chancellor while he discoursed on the stage and to Archie Dexter while he gave his views on tbe political situation. Julia was at the top of her form. Archie Dexter had a quick wit, a fund of stage stories and a wonderful gift for telling them; between the two of them they kept the table during luncheon laughing uproariously; and after tea, when the tennis players were tired of playing tennis, Julia was persu-aded (not much against her will) to do her imitations of Gladys Co-oper, Constance Collier and Gertie Lawrence. But Julia did not forget that Charles Tamerley was her devoted, unrewarded lover, and she took care to have a little stroll alone with him in the gloaming. With him she sought to be neither gay nor brilliant, she was tender and wistful. Her heart ached, notwithstanding the scintillating perfor-mance she had given during the day; and it was with almost comp-lete sincerity that with sighs, sad looks and broken sentences, she made him understand that her life was hollow and despite the long continued success of her career she could not but feel that she had missed something. Sometimes she thought of the villa at Sorrento

on the bay of Naples. A beautiful dream. Happiness might have be-en hers for the asking, perhaps, she had been a fool; after all what were the triumphs of the stage but illusion? Pagliacci. People never realized how true that was; Vesti la giubba and all that sort of thing. She was desperately lonely. Of course there was no need to tell Charles that her heart ached not for lost opportunities, but because a young man seemed to prefer playing golf with her son to making love to her.

But then Julia and Archie Dexter got together. After dinner when they were all sitting in the drawing -room, without warning, starting with a few words of natural conversation they burst, as though they were lovers, into a jealous quarrel. For a moment the rest did not re-alize it was a joke till their mutual accusations became so outrageo-us and indecent that they were consumed with laughter. Then they played an extempore scene of an intoxicated gentleman picking up a French tart in Jermyn Street. After that, with intense seriousness, while their little audience shook with laughter, they did Mrs. Alving in Ghosts trying to seduce Pastor Manders. They finished with a per-formance that they had given often enough before at theatrical par-ties to enable them to do it with effect. This was a Chekhov play in English, but in moments of passion breaking into something that so-unded exactly like Russian. Julia exercised all her great gift for tra-gedy, but underlined it with a farcical emphasis, so that the effect was incredibly funny. She put into her performance the real anguish of her heart, and with her lively sense of the ridiculous made a mock of it. The audience rolled about in their chairs; they held their sides, they groaned in an agony of laughter. Perhaps Julia had never acted better. She was acting for Tom and for him alone.

"I've seen Bernhardt and Rejane," said the Chancellor; "I've seen Duse and Ellen Terry and Mrs. Kendal. Nunc dimittis."

Julia, radiant, sank back into a chair and swallowed at a draught a glass of champagne.

"If I haven't cooked Roger's goose I'll eat my hat," she thought. But for all that the two lads had gone to play golf when she came

downstairs next morning. Michael had taken the Dennorants up to town. Julia was tired. She found it an effort to be bright and chatty when Tom and Roger came in to lunch. In the afternoon the three of them went on the river, but Julia had the feeling that they took her, not because they much wanted to, but because they could not help it. She stifled a sigh when she reflected how much she had looked forward to Tom's holiday. Now she was counting the days that must pass till it ended. She drew a deep breath of relief when she got into the car to go to London. She was not angry with Tom, but deeply hurt; she was exasperated with herself because she had so lost control over her feelings. But when she got into the theatre she felt that she shook off the obsession of him like a bad dream from which

one awoke; there, in her dressing-room, she regained possession of herself and the affairs of the common round of daily life faded to in-significance. Nothing really mattered when she had within her grasp this possibility of freedom.

Thus the week went by. Michael, Roger and Tom enjoyed them-selves. They bathed, they played tennis, they played golf, they loun-ged about on the river. There were only four days more. There were only three days more.

("I can stick it out now. It'll be different when we're back in Lon-don again. I mustn't show how miserable I am. I must pretend it's all right.")

"A snip having this spell of fine weather," said Michael. "Tom's be-en a success, hasn't he? Pity he can't stay another week."

"Yes, a terrible pity."

"I think he's a nice friend for Roger to have. A thoroughly normal, clean-minded English boy."

"Oh, thoroughly." ("Bloody fool, bloody fool") "To see the way they eat is a fair treat."

"Yes, they seem to have enjoyed their food." ("My God, I wish it could have choked them.")

Tom was to go up to town by an early train on Monday morning. The Dexters, who had a house at Bourne End, had asked them all to lunch on Sunday. They were to go down, in the launch. Now that Tom's holiday was nearly over Julia was glad that she had never by so much as a lifted eyebrow betrayed her irritation. She was certain that he had no notion how deeply he had wounded her. After all she must be tolerant, he was only a boy, and if you must cross your t's,* she was old enough to be his mother. It was a bore that she had a thing about him, but there it was, she couldn't help it; she had told herself from the beginning that she must never let him feel that she had any claims on him. No one was coming to dinner on Sunday. She would have liked to have Tom to herself on his last evening; that was impossible, but at all events they could go for a stroll by themselves in the garden.

"I wonder if he's noticed that he hasn't kissed me since he came here?"

They might go out in the punt. It would be heavenly to lie in his arms for a few minutes; it would make up for everything.

The Dexters' party was theatrical. Grace Hardwill, Archie's wife, played in musical comedy, and there was a bevy of pretty girls who danced in the piece in which she was then appearing. Julia acted with great naturalness the part of a leading lady who put on no frills. She was charming to the young ladies, with their waved platinum hair, who earned three pounds a week in the chorus. A good many of the guests had brought kodaks and she submitted with affability to being photographed. She applauded enthusiastically when Grace

Hardwill sang her famous song to the accompaniment of the compo-ser. She laughed as heartily as anyone when the comic woman did an imitation of her in one of her best-known parts. It was all very gay, rather rowdy, and agreeably light-hearted. Julia enjoyed her-self, but when it was seven o'clock was not sorry to go. She was thanking her hosts effusively for the pleasant party when Roger ca-me up to her.

"I say, mum, there's a whole crowd going on to Maidenhead to di-ne and dance, and they want Tom and me to go too. You don't mind, do you?"

The blood rushed to her cheeks. She could not help answering rather sharply.

"How are you to get back?"

"Oh, that'll be all right. We'll get someone to drop us."

She looked at him helplessly. She could not think what to say. "It's going to be a tremendous lark. Tom's crazy to go."

Her heart sank. It was with the greatest difficulty that she mana-ged not to make a scene. But she controlled herself.

"All right, darling. But don't be too late. Remember that Tom's got to rise with the lark."

Tom had come up and heard the last words. "You're sure you don't mind?" he asked.

"Of course not. I hope you'll have a grand time."

She smiled brightly at him, but her eyes were steely with hatred. "I'm just as glad those two kids have gone off," said Michael when

they got into the launch. "We haven't had an evening to ourselves for ever so long."

She clenched her hands in order to prevent herself from telling him to hold his silly tongue. She was in a black rage. This was the last straw. Tom had neglected her for a fortnight, he had not even treated her with civility, and she had been angelic. There wasn't a woman in the world who would have shown such patience. Any ot-her woman would have told him that if he couldn't behave with com-mon decency he'd better get out. Selfish, stupid and common, that's what he was. She almost wished he wasn't going tomorrow so that she could have the pleasure of turning him out bag and baggage. And to dare to treat her like that, a twopenny halfpenny little man in the city; poets, cabinet ministers, peers of the realm would be only too glad to break the most important engagements to have the chance of dining with her, and he threw her over to go and dance with a pack of peroxide blondes who couldn't act for nuts. That sho-wed what a fool he was. You would have thought he'd have some gratitude. Why, the very clothes he had on she'd paid for. That ciga-rette-case he was so proud of, hadn't she given him that? And the ring he wore. My God, she'd get even with him. Yes, and she knew how she could do it. She knew where he was most sensitive and how

she could most cruelly wound him. That would get him on the raw. She felt a faint sensation of relief as she turned the scheme over in her mind.

She was impatient to carry out her part of it at once, and they had no sooner got home than she went up to her room. She got four single pounds out of her bag and a ten- shilling note. She wrote a bri-ef letter.

DEAR TOM,

I'm enclosing the money for your tips as I shan't see you in the morning. Give three pounds to the butler, a pound to the maid who's been valeting you, and ten shillings to the chauffeur.

JULIA.

She sent for Evie and gave instructions that the letter should be given to Tom by the maid who awoke him. When she went down to dinner she felt much better. She carried on an animated conversati-on with Michael while they dined and afterwards they played six pack bezique.* If she had racked her brains for a week she couldn't have thought of anything that would humiliate Tom more bitterly.

But when she went to bed she could not sleep. She was waiting for Roger and Tom to come home. A notion came to her that made her restless. Perhaps Tom would realize that he had behaved rot-tenly, if he gave it a moment's thought he must see how unhappy he was making her; it might be that he would be sorry and when he came in, after he had said good night to Roger, he would creep down to her room. If he did that she would forgive everything. The letter was probably in the butler's pantry; she could easily slip down and get it back. At last a car drove up. She turned on her light to lo-okat the time. It was three. She heard the two young men go upsta-irs and to their respective rooms. She waited. She put on the light by her bedside so that when he opened the door he should be able to see. She would pretend she was sleeping and then as he crept forward on tiptoe slowly open her eyes and smile at him. She wa-ited. In the silent night she heard him get into bed and switch off the light. She stared straight in front of her for a minute, then with a shrug of the shoulders opened a drawer by her bedside and from a little bottle took a couple of sleeping-tablets. "If I don't sleep I shall go mad."

JULIA did not wake till after eleven. Among her letters was one that had not come by post. She recognized Tom's neat, commercial hand and tore it open. It contained nothing but the four pounds and the ten-shilling note. She felt slightly sick. She did not quite know what she had expected him to reply to her condescending letter and the humiliating present. It had not occurred to her that he would re-

turn it. She was troubled, she had wanted to hurt his feelings, but she had a fear now that she had gone too far.

"Anyhow I hope he tipped the servants," she muttered to reassure herself. She shrugged her shoulders. "He'll come round. It won't hurt him to discover that I'm not all milk and honey."

But she remained thoughtful throughout the day. When she got to the theatre a parcel was waiting for her. As soon as she looked at the address she knew what it contained. Evie asked if she should open it.

"No."

But the moment she was alone she opened it herself. There were the cuff-links and the waistcoat buttons, the pearl studs, the wrist-watch and the cigarette-case of which Tom was so proud. All the presents she had ever given him. But no letter. Not a word of expla-nation. Her heart sank and she noticed that she was trembling.

"What a damned fool I was! Why didn't I keep my temper?"

Her heart now beat painfully. She couldn't go on the stage with that anguish gnawing at her vitals, she would give a frightful perfor-mance; at whatever cost she must speak to him. There was a telep-hone in his house and an extension to his room. She rang him. For-tunately he was in.

"Tom."

"Yes?"

He had paused for a moment before answering and his voice was peevish.

"What does this mean? Why have you sent me all those things?" "Did you get the notes this morning?"

"Yes. I couldn't make head or tail of it. Have I offended you?"

"Oh no," he answered. "I like being treated like a kept boy. I like having it thrown in my face that even my tips have to be given me. I thought it rather strange that you didn't send me the money for a third-class ticket back to London."

Although Julia was in a pitiable state of anxiety, so that she could hardly get the words out of her mouth, she almost smiled at his fa-tuous irony. He was a silly little thing.

"But you can't imagine that I wanted to hurt your feelings. You su-rely know me well enough to know that's the last thing I should do."

"That only makes it worse." ("Damn and curse," thought Julia.) "I ought never to have let you make me those presents. I should never have let you lend me money."

"I don't know what you mean. It's all some horrible misunderstan-ding. Come and fetch me after the play and we'll have it out. I know I can explain."

"I'm going to dinner with my people and I shall sleep at home." "Tomorrow then."

"I'm engaged tomorrow."

"I must see you, Tom. We've been too much to one another to part like this. You can't condemn me unheard. It's so unjust to pu-nish me for no fault of mine."

"I think it's much better that we shouldn't meet again." Julia was growing desperate.

"But I love you, Tom. I love you. Let me see you once more and then, if you're still angry with me, we'll call it a day."

There was a long pause before he answered.

"All right. I'll come after the matinee on Wednesday." "Don't think unkindly of me, Tom."

She put down the receiver. At all events he was coming. She wrapped up again the things he had returned to her, and hid them away where she was pretty sure Evie would not see them. She und-ressed, put on her old pink dressing- gown and began to make-up. She was out of humour: this was the first time she had ever told him that she loved him. It vexed her that she had been forced to humili-ate herself by begging him to come and see her. Till then it had al-ways been he who sought her company. She was not pleased to think that the situation between them now was openly reversed.

Julia gave a very poor performance at the matinee on Wednes-day. The heat wave had affected business and the house was apat-hetic. Julia was indifferent. With that sickness of apprehension gna-wing at her heart she could not care how the play went. ("What the hell do they want to come to the theatre for on a day like this any-way?") She was glad when it was over.

"I'm expecting Mr. Fennell," she told Evie. "While he's here I don't want to be disturbed."

Evie did not answer. Julia gave her a glance and saw that she was looking grim.

("To hell with her. What do Icare what she thinks!")

He ought to have been there by now. It was after five. He was bo-und to come; after all, he'd promised, hadn't he? She put on a dres-sing -gown, not the one she made up in, but a man's dressing -gown, in plum-coloured silk. Evie took an interminable time to put things straight.

"For God's sake don't fuss, Evie. Leave me alone."

Evie did not speak. She went on methodically arranging the vario-us objects on the dressing-table exactly as Julia always wanted them.

"Why the devil don't you answer when 'I speak to you?"

Evie turned round and looked at her. She thoughtfully rubbed her finger along her nostrils.

"Great actress you may be..." "Get the hell out of here."

After taking off her stage make-up Julia had done nothing to her face except put the very faintest shading of blue under her eyes.

She had a smooth, pale skin and without rouge on her cheeks or red on her lips she looked wan. The man's dressing -gown gave an effect at once helpless, fragile and gallant. Her heart was beating painfully and she was very anxious, but looking at herself in the glass she murmured: Mimi in the last act of Boheme. Almost without meaning to she coughed once or twice consumptively. She turned off the bright lights on her dressing-table and lay down on the sofa. Pre-sently there was a knock on the door and Evie announced Mr. Fen-nell. Julia held out a white, thin hand.

"Fm lying down. I'm afraid I'm not very well. Find yourself a chair. It's nice of you to come."

"I'm sorry. What's the matter?"

"Oh, nothing." She forced a smile to her ashy lips. "I haven't been sleeping very well the last two or three nights."

She turned her beautiful eyes on him and for a while gazed at him in silence. His expression was sullen, but she had a notion that he was frightened.

"I'm waiting for you to tell me what you've got against me," she said at last in a low voice.

It trembled a little, she noticed, but quite naturally. ("Christ, I beli-eve I'm frightened too.")

"There's no object in going back to that. The only thing I wanted to say to you was this: I'm afraid I can't pay you the two hundred po-unds I owe you right away. I simply haven't got it, but I'll pay you by degrees. I hate having to ask you to give me time, but I can't help myself."

She sat up on the sofa and put both her hands to her breaking he-art.

"I don't understand. I've lain awake for two whole nights turning it all over in my mind. I thought I should go mad. I've been trying to understand. I can't. I can't."

("What play did I say that in?")

"Oh yes, you can, you understand perfectly. You were angry with me and you wanted to get back on me. And you did. You got back on me all right. You couldn't have shown your contempt for me mo-re clearly."

"But why should I want to get back on you? Why should I be angry with you?"

"Because I went to Maidenhead with Roger to that party and you wanted me to come home."

"But I told you to go. I said I hoped you'd have a good time."

"I know you did, but your eyes were blazing with passion. I didn't want to go, but Roger was keen on it. I told him I thought we ought to come back and dine with you and Michael, but he said you'd be glad to have us off your hands, and I didn't like to make a song and dance about it. And when I saw you were in a rage it was too late to

get out of it."

"I wasn't in a rage. I can't think how you got such an idea in your head. It was so natural that you should want to go to the party. You can't think I'm such a beast as to grudge you a little fun in your fort-night's holiday. My poor lamb, my only fear was that you would be bored. I so wanted you to have a good time."

"Then why did you send me that money and write me that letter? It was so insulting."

Julia's voice faltered. Her jaw began to tremble and the loss of control over her muscles was strangely moving. Tom looked away uneasily.

"I couldn't bear to think of your having to throw away your good money on tips. I know that you're not terribly rich and I knew you'd spent a lot on green fees. * I hate women who go about with young men and let them pay for everything. It's so inconsiderate. I treated you just as I'd have treated Roger. I never thought it would hurt your feelings."

"Will you swear that?"

"Of course I will. My God, is it possible that after all these months you don't know me better than that? If what you think were true, what a mean, cruel, despicable woman I should be, what a cad, what a heartless, vulgar beast! Is that what you think I am?"

A poser.

"Anyhow it doesn't matter. I ought never to have accepted valu-able presents from you and allowed you to lend me money. It's put me in a rotten position. Why I thought you despised me is that I can't help feeling that you've got a right to. The fact is I can't afford to run around with people who are so much richer than I am. I was a fool to think I could. It's been fun and I've had a grand time, but now I'm through. I'm not going to see you any more."

She gave a deep sigh.

"You don't care two hoots for me. That's what that means." "That's not fair."

"You're everything in the world to me. You know that. I'm so lo-nely and your friendship meant a great deal to me. I'm surrounded by hangers-on and parasites and I knew you were disinterested. I felt I could rely on you. I so loved being with you. You were the only person in the world with whom I could be entirely myself. Don't you know what a pleasure it was to me to help you a little? It wasn't for your sake I made you little presents, it was for my own; it made me so happy to see you using the things I'd given you. If you'd cared for me at all they wouldn't have humiliated you, you'd have been touc-hed to owe me something."

She turned her eyes on him once more. She could always cry easily, and she was really so miserable now that she did not have to make even a small effort. He had never seen her cry before. She co-

uld cry, without sobbing, her wonderful dark eyes wide open, with a face that was almost rigid. Great heavy tears ran down it. And her quietness, the immobility of the tragic body, were terribly moving. She hadn't cried like that since she cried in The Stricken Heart. Christ, how that play had shattered her. She was not looking at Tom, she was looking straight in front of her; she was really distracted with grief, but, what was it? another self within her knew what she was doing, a self that shared in her unhappiness and yet watched its expression. She felt him go white. She felt a sudden anguish wring his heartstrings, she felt that his flesh and blood could not support the intolerable pain of hers.

"Julia."

His voice was broken. She slowly turned her liquid eyes on him. It was not a woman crying that he saw, it was all the woe of human-kind, it was the immeasurable, the inconsolable grief that is the lot of man. He threw himself down on his knees and took her in his arms. He was shattered.

"Dearest, dearest."

For a minute she did not move. It was as if she did not know that he was there. He kissed her streaming eyes and with his mouth so-ught hers. She gave it to him as though she were powerless, as tho-ugh, scarcely conscious of what was befalling her, she had no will left. With a scarcely perceptible movement she pressed her body to his and gradually her arms found their way round his neck. She lay in his arms, not exactly inert, but as though all the strength, all the vitality, had gone out of her. In his mouth he tasted the saltness of her tears. At last, exhausted, clinging to him with soft arms she sank back on the sofa. His lips clung to hers.

You would never have thought had you seen her a quarter of an hour later, so quietly gay, flushed a little, that so short a while befo-re she had passed through such a tempest of weeping. They each had a whisky and soda and a cigarette and looked at one another with fond eyes.

"He's a sweet little thing," she thought.

It occurred to her that she would give him a treat.

"The Duke and Duchess of Rickaby are coming to the play tonight and we're going to have supper at the Savoy. I suppose you wo-uldn't come, would you? I want a man badly to make a fourth."

"If you'd like me to, of course I will."

The heightened colour on his cheeks told her how excited he was to meet such distinguished persons. She did not tell him that the Rickabys would go anywhere for a free meal. Tom took back the pre-sents that he had returned to her rather shyly, but he took them. When he had gone she sat down at the dressing- table and had a go-od look at herself.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-04